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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179803">vanidicus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook'>handydandynotebook</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>dolor sicut ratio [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Dark Crack, Decapitation, Drinking, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internal Conflict, Moral Dilemmas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:48:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,212</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179803</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan does not look at Neil. She steps over the axe on her way into the hall. She smells Billy before she sees him, a strong reek of beer and weed and something else, something burnt, maybe. She stops in her tracks, blood running cold. </p><p>Oh no, no, no. </p><p>She’s not prepared to deal with Billy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>dolor sicut ratio [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>vanidicus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>part 2. why is there a part 2. there wasn't supposed to be a follow up, the last fic was just pure porn for yours truly bc milfs doing murder is my ultimate kink.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Susan lathers herself up in the shower, bites her lip as she watches the suds rinse red down the drain. She inhales steam through her nose and washes under her fingernails. She vigorously scrubs the loofah between her breasts, at this stubborn splotch of Neil’s blood that dried like a scar upon her sternum. </p><p>Susan isn’t sure when the spray goes cold. She doesn’t think she notices right away. She doesn’t step over the rim of the tub until every speck of blood is gone from her skin. Until every bit of it has swirled down the drain, diluted by the water. Until she looks nothing like a woman whose husband lies butchered in their bed. </p><p>She towels herself dry and slips into the plush bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. She ties it with shaky fingers and tentatively slips back into the bedroom. She does not look at Neil. She steps over the axe on her way into the hall. </p><p>Susan smells Billy before she sees him, a strong reek of beer and weed and something else, something burnt, maybe. She stops in her tracks, blood running cold. </p><p>Oh no, no, no. </p><p>She’s not prepared to deal with Billy. She wasn’t expecting to see him until Monday, doesn’t have any kind of excuse prepped, any plan for what to say to him or do with him. But she can’t just avoid him either, that’d be more suspicious, so Susan gulps and tentatively pads into the living room. </p><p>To her enormous relief, she doesn’t have to say or do anything at all. Billy’s here but he’s out cold, flat on his back on the couch, one arm draped over his eyes, the other dangling over the side of the couch, fingers brushing the carpet. He’s still in his boots and his clothes, or his jeans and jacket anyway. He’d been wearing a shirt when he left, but evidently ditched it at some point. His chest is bare as it rises and falls with deep, even breaths. </p><p>It looks like he’s out hard. Smells like it too, good heavens, is the booze sweating right from his pores? </p><p>Just how smashed is he? </p><p>The fact that he’s on the couch is a pretty good indicator. Billy never crashes on the couch. That wasn’t a smart move, not with Neil around. Susan lightly pokes his cheek.</p><p>No response. </p><p>She chews her lip and slinks up to the window, peering outside. Under the streetlamp, she can make out the Camaro. It’s parked sideways not in the driveway, but on the front lawn. Susan turns back to Billy. She wrings her hands as she studies him. She calls his name, gives his shoulder a gentle jostle. Again, no response. </p><p>He’s definitely down for the count. On any other night she would be concerned, truth be told.  </p><p>But tonight. </p><p>Tonight is. </p><p>One day Susan will go to Hell. She realizes this with the same inexorable certainty she’d realized what must be done with Neil. One day she is going to Hell, where she’ll burn and she’ll rot, consumed by torture endlessly. None of it will be punishment for what she’s done to her husband. Every bit of it will be punishment for what she is about to do to her stepson. </p><p>Susan hesitates only a moment before taking a deep breath and returning to the bedroom. She picks Neil’s head up by the hair, fingers twisting tightly in the strands. She takes the axe in her opposite hand, drying blood sticky against her palm. </p><p>Her heart is a hideous rotten thing in her chest, a spoiled apple with worms sprouting free. She doesn’t know if she’s always been this person. If desperation has transformed her into something else or simply peeled back the layers and forced out something that was always there, lurking beneath. She does not truly want the answer to this question. </p><p>Surely no normal person could hold a man’s severed head over his son’s unconscious form, but that’s exactly what Susan does. She shakes it up and down so that the blood from the viscous stump of Neil’s mutilated neck flies free. It speckles Billy’s chest, seeps into the denim of his jacket. Flecks his chin. It mimics the splatter that had been on Susan’s clothes, even though there’s less of it. Hopefully it won’t matter, hopefully Billy will be too horrified to question the amount of blood on his person. Hopefully, she thinks, God in Heaven, how can she think such a thing?</p><p>What is she?</p><p>She doesn’t know. Something horrible. Susan peers at Billy’s slack, oblivious face and knows she is nothing less than horrible. Nausea devours her insides and Susan carries on anyway, shaking Neil’s head up and down. Back and forth. Sprinkling Billy in as much blood as she can get out of it. </p><p>Some of Neil’s teeth wobble free, loosened from the slashes in his broken, bloodied jaw. They tumble down, bouncing off Billy before landing soundlessly on the carpet. Susan is careful not to step on these teeth as she crouches down. She places Neil’s head on the floor, rolls it over so that the hacked up messy mash that used to be his eyes aren’t facing toward her. </p><p>She takes Billy’s dangling hand and curls it around the handle of the axe. Holds fast for an agonizingly long moment. She relaxes his fingers and places the axe within their reach once she thinks they are bloody enough. Smears the blood on her own hands up and down his wrist, gets as much as possible off her skin and onto his. </p><p>With that, she darts to the kitchen and purges her guts into the sink.</p><p><em>You killed your father,</em> she will inform Billy when he comes to. </p><p>With any luck he’d been blackout drunk anyway, the way the Camaro is parked certainly attests to it. Shouldn’t be too hard to persuade him he was even if he wasn’t. Who knows what else is in his system beyond the marijuana and the alcohol. Besides, he’s certainly wanted to kill Neil before. No one hated Neil more than Billy. </p><p>And who could do it, if not Billy? </p><p>He's a troublemaker with a violent history and it’s not his fault, of course it’s not his fault, Susan knows. He hasn't exactly had a chance to learn to be anything but. But whether it's his fault or not, violent is what he is. </p><p><em>You killed your father,</em> she will tell him and surely, surely he will believe her because if he didn’t do it, who else? </p><p>Not Max, certainly. Not thirteen year old Max with her broken clavicle. Not Susan, no, never. Never meek, mousy Susan, so timid and soft-spoken you’d never even know she was in the room if not for the way the light catches her autumn red hair, sets it ablaze like fire in the sun. </p><p><em>You killed your father,</em> she will convince him. </p><p><em>I know you had to,</em> she will add in an effort to soften the blow. </p><p><em>I don’t blame you,</em> she will soothe, as if he’s ever cared what her feelings were. </p><p><em>I will help you dispose of him,</em> she will promise and no one else would, so he will simply have to trust her. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>did i mention how attached i am to morally ambivalent susan bc i am v attached to morally ambivalent susan.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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